Dr Visit

I made an appointment with my surgeon for yesterday.  I wanted to let him know that since my arthroscopy, I have been having significant pain (I didn’t have pain before just the joint locking from the meniscus tear), and that I can’t get the swelling or fluid to go away.  It’s been 3 months, so I would think that the swelling would be all gone.  He examined my knee and gave me the verdict.

He believe that the pain is from the arthritis.  He said that the joint isn’t that stable because of the type of ACL graft that I had in 1997.  As far as the arthritis goes, there are a limited number of choices.

1. knee replacements… I’m way too young for that.  They only last 10-15 years before they have to be replaced.  I guess that since I’m on 40, he thinks that I’ll still be alive 10-15 years from now.  We’ll see…  The downside is that I wouldn’t be able to do anything I love anymore.  No skiing and no martial arts.
2. Detach my tib/fib, shim them, and set them back at a different angle.  This would change the way my weight is dispersed on my knees.  The theory is that this will alleviate the pain for time being.  The downside is that it is very painful (his words) and takes a long time to recover fully.  I can’t take that much time off work.  I have a family to support.
3. Wear an “unloader” knee brace.  I would have to wear it all the time.  There’s no guarantee that it will help with the pain.  The downside is that they are about $1400 to have them custom fit.  I would need 2.

I am not too sure what I will do.  I am very depressed about the whole fucking situation.

I went to the gym today to have my leg day workout.  I went to squat rack and put up 135lbs.  I do this as a light warm up.  I did 1 set ok.  2nd set, around rep 4, massive pain shot through my knee and it almost buckled.  I had to stop obviously.  I limped around for 5 minutes.  I ended up heading over to the elliptical trainer and went for 30 min instead.  Then I did the stationary bike for another 20 min.  Very disappointing workout…  Sigh…

The end